What has happened to the Homemade in HomemadeTools?

[Jon]

We'll likely gradually tone down the prominent placement of the Tool Talk posts in the newsletter. It launched well and less-and-less needs additional promotion. The videos, text posts, and GIFs have proven their value, and possibly (hard to measure) eliminated a bit of the belief that you can only post a finished tool here. Ozwelder's point about commercial confusion is important. Stuff like the Carter Bandsaw clinic is clearly from a company, but extremely useful, and I don't want people to think that we're subtly advertising for them.

Glad to see that the positive growth here is appreciated! I'm a big fan of the "growth hacking" sites and ideas, and have even written some basic forum software to measure growth metrics. It's amazing some of the tiny things that contribute hugely to growth. Encouraging people to upload an avatar, asking new users "What can we help with?" instead of just "What are you building?". Recently I wrote a basic program that I use every morning to manually record the stated interests of new users. So if someone registers and says that they have a background in heavy equipment, I make a note of it. Then when someone else asks a heavy equipment-related question in the Tools in Progress subforum, I send that first person an email asking if they can help with the question, but only if they've become inactive on the forum. Etc.

[Toolmaker51]

I for one, might say content is in the eye of the beholder...except when it isn't. Broad interests aren't 'compelled' to revel in every single post; size or complexity of the post aren't measures of it's 'grade', the project is. Not sure if interest falls toward certain members; usually the project comes first; with something I value or am deficient in. Either way, there is benefit.
Guess even something like the mine-planter had something to file away for later; in the mechanics, not the purpose.

[cpttuna]

Just my $.02 Let's say someone is making containers to hold nuts, washers and bolts. The first guy has a lathe and machines all his holders the same size and makes a fancy way to put them on a wall in his garage. The second guy goes to the recycling center and gets 2 dozen empty 2 liter bottles. He then goes to the grocery store and asks and gets 2 plastic 2 liter bottle storage containers. At home, he cuts the bottles to the size he needs depending how many of each size bolts, nuts, and washers he has. He marks the bottles with a sharpie and fills the plastic holder containers. The second guy is more like me and I give the info on #2 guy my attention.

[Toolmaker51]

Just my $.02 Let's say someone is making containers to hold nuts, washers and bolts. The first guy has a lathe and machines all his holders the same size and makes a fancy way to put them on a wall in his garage. The second guy goes to the recycling center and gets 2 dozen empty 2 liter bottles. He then goes to the grocery store and asks and gets 2 plastic 2 liter bottle storage containers. At home, he cuts the bottles to the size he needs depending how many of each size bolts, nuts, and washers he has. He marks the bottles with a sharpie and fills the plastic holder containers. The second guy is more like me and I give the info on #2 guy my attention.

What exactly is 'homemade'? My stance, where was it conceived? If I drill brackets at work for my garage, but I measured & designed them here, bent them here, used them here, only wasn't energetic enough to hand drill 1/2" holes for lag bolts, it's still home made.
So the lathe-guy makes containers for storing hardware must really like generating chips, & a lot of spare time, but inventiveness is not generating better solutions.
Guy cutting containers wants to solve and finish his project in an afternoon, getting on to what's next.
I vote for the re-utilizer too. If boiled down, it's all a question of resources. What I see here on HMT.net adds one detail. Many here, backgrounds stem in 'for profit' work, and at home it carries over to those projects. Others may not be machinists, welders, or engineers during the day and very possibly have a little more peripheral vision to what they want to do and how to accomplish it. Experience counts as a resource too; but not automatically 'best of all' when it comes to what needs done.
Below is a sidenote, and a viewpoint of experience. I do like identifying the differences in how products occur, and soap-boxing concept what we practice is far more than just a hobby.
To me, creating solutions stems from same idea that "Necessity is the mother of invention". If the Industrial Revolution stimulated machine-made products, it had to cause a shift in hand-work to the same range of items. For example, the sewing machine. Industrially, they opened production of ready-made clothing, acceptance of that stimulated demand. Mid 1860's, women of means bought ready-made as it had become fashionable; regardless superior quality (and individuality) was available hand-made. They were 'celebrating' industry in a tangible way. Civil War reenactors can wear 'period correct' clothing made either way. To be correct, materials are limited to cotton, wool, silk, linen, and derivative materials like velvet and starched backing. Ask one about her 'costume'; brace for correction 'period correct' means just that. It's a costume if there are zippers, Velcro, Rayon, etc.

[mklotz]

Just my $.02 Let's say someone is making containers to hold nuts, washers and bolts. The first guy has a lathe and machines all his holders the same size and makes a fancy way to put them on a wall in his garage. The second guy goes to the recycling center and gets 2 dozen empty 2 liter bottles. He then goes to the grocery store and asks and gets 2 plastic 2 liter bottle storage containers. At home, he cuts the bottles to the size he needs depending how many of each size bolts, nuts, and washers he has. He marks the bottles with a sharpie and fills the plastic holder containers. The second guy is more like me and I give the info on #2 guy my attention.

Don't make the mistake of evaluating the work shown here by how closely it approaches the way you would solve the problem.

Rather, extract from it the information, ideas and techniques you can apply profitably to whatever you do.

[Frank S]

What's happened to homemade tools? Just about everything and anything imagined. Would be the closest answer I can come up with. Many of the contributors here have created some extremely complex high precision elaborately detailed items they needed or simply wanted to make. Those very same persons have contributed tools in the foray which are so simple and mundane some may wonder why even bother, but the fact is even the most mundanely simple items posted here often ignite a spark of creativity in the minds of others making them ask themselves WHY on Earth didn't I think of that. Then there are many things we may use every day which already exist which can not be classified as a homemade tool but becomes a valuable tool none the less to accomplish a task at hand.
Just the other day while building our chicken pen I needed to hold a very long sheet of metal on the side of a wall before I could think of what I wanted to use my wife laid 3 long boards across the sheet that was already installed then pushed the end of them in the ground enough that they would remain there I already had the sheet next to the wall the boards were above it all I had to do was lift the sheet up and allow the boards to catch in the corrugations as I raised it. The boards served as self ratcheting wedges holding the board in place while I secured it to the wall.
Was that a homemade tool? No but the purpose and use was invaluable.